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We’re one of the world’s manufacturing heartlands. It’s not just the big-name motor manufacturers like Jaguar Land Rover that make this region great - there are countless smaller manufacturing firms in Birmingham and the Black Country, Redditch, Wolverhampton and elsewhere, doing highly advanced, specialised work and employing a skilled workforce.

And there are 32,100 businesses in the West Midlands that export to EU countries.

But we’re not all about manufacturing. The region has Britain’s largest financial services industry outside London and the south east, symbolised by the imminent arrival of HSBC’s UK banking headquarters in Birmingham.

Being part of Europe helps us win trade and investment from across the globe.

Indian firm Tata, the owners of JLR, continue to invest in the automotive firm because they know products built in the West Midlands by West Midlands workers can be sold across Europe without restrictions.

They say that millions of Turks are set to invade Britain if we stay in the EU. But this is just fearmongering. Turkey is not joining the EU for the foreseeable future, because of its poor human rights record.

We can’t cut ourselves off from our neighbours. And we can’t put our jobs and exports at risk, as the leave campaign wants us to do.

Birmingham and the West Midlands are strong and successful when we look out across the world, trading, attracting investment and collaborating.